


Cimex

by skivvery



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-21 23:30:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6062188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skivvery/pseuds/skivvery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sleeping was more burden than blessing these days."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cimex

**Author's Note:**

> A jumble of words which can hopefully be imagined somewhere during season three (before episode eight) with little effort, though it's mostly just some quirky character exploration. (It might read as a bit convoluted, I think, but that's kind of the point).  
> Also, in regards to the title, I wouldn't recommend looking up information about bedbugs. Just don't do it. I mean it.

Panic shoots up through her strained body as she wakes, drenched in cold sweat, in a bed that isn't her own. It takes her a few seconds to recognize her environs without her glasses in the dark, while a heavy arm rests over her heaving chest, unconscious fingers all but clutching at her shoulder in greedy possession as the arm's owner purrs beside Cosima in oblivious slumber.

Calming down doesn't take long. She's had one of _those_ dreams again; the shivering could testify against that conclusion, but the humidity between her legs added to the proximity of one of her own hands to that most intimate of places do not lie.

Despite feeling neglected for waking up so violently without a hint of recognition by the other woman in bed with her, Cosima finds it's maybe best this way. How could she answer if questioned (and questioned she would be), “oh, just a nightmare, babe, never mind the pungent and undeniable scent of female arousal going on, go back to sleep now”? Shay need not be a scientist to identify the conditions _that_ smell entailed nor to figure out that that answer of Cosima's would be complete bullshit.

Cosima sighs, runs hands over her face, presses her eyes in until she sees stars, disgusted with the sensation of her own skin, wet and sticky.

Sleeping was more burden than blessing these days.

The promises weaved by beds repellent rather than alluring, a portion of wild ocean to drown in throughout the night instead of a lifeboat; silence and solitude, where once desired, are now horrors – the kind that awakens Cosima Niehaus in the middle of the night, the kind that denies Delphine Cormier the very possibility of sleep.

Her bed is empty, it's been this way always. Inviting people in was something she rarely did, if ever, preferring to spend the night at someone else's place while keeping her own untouched and sacred. In some ways, this isn't her home at all – France is home, Lille at her family's or even Paris on her own gave her comfort, allowed her ease – and she often wonders why she still insists to keep this apartment of hers such a secret. Then again, there is no one left to bring inside now, not to share a drink or a laugh, much less to share a bed with. It remains empty as it ever was.

Of course that moment of eccentricity in choosing her furniture had meant the acquisition of a double bed. For the most part, her own body had occupied it alone every night with the utmost pleasure and wanted for nothing.

Now, however, there lies an eternal shadow beside her upon the sheets, the indentation of a body missing from a place it had never even touched. So she can't sleep.

Which is why she won't try anymore.

Delphine hadn't changed yet, still wearing the same sober work outfit she had put on early this morning, so all she needs to do is grab her purse and put on her shoes again and she's ready. A few clothes in a gym bag, making sure all her windows are properly closed and the bed tidied, the creases formed under her own restless weight erased, and off she goes. Not two hours have gone by since she arrived from the DYAD Institute when she locks her apartment door behind her to head back again.

The logical reasons for returning to her work place are vague and Cosima can't quite explain it to herself as she walks the streets of Toronto in the small hours. She sneaked out without any problems, making sure Shay had a pillow to cling to instead of her body – funny, Delphine had never really slept entwined with her like that; they used to give one another space in bed when it came to sleeping. (Judging by the heavy imprint of Shay's arm still burning upon her chest, Cosima thinks maybe that was a better way to doze off with a partner, even if less romantic). Delphine never did that, never dug nails into her back or bit her strong enough to cause pain or locked her limbs with her own during sleep so as to restrict her movements in the name of affection. Lots of people do, Shay does, but Delphine never did; Cosima never really wanted her to, either. It wasn't necessary, something to be missed. Being greeted in French in the most loving of ways, even if it were a simple _bonjour_ was better than waking up entangled and breathless under dead weight. Truly, she never did have any nightmares when Delphine was with her. _Au contraire_.

Admittedly, at the time it was honesty on the line, not constancy. If now Delphine has long and insufferable bouts of insomnia (whose resulting stress she masks with dedication, her decisions and actions clearer to her subordinates than the black circles growing deeper beneath her carefully, naturally-looking painted eyes) because she is too worried with Cosima's health and project Leda's survival, too impatient with the lab examination results, too wary and weary of the surrounding, never-ending politics her current position involves, back then things were simpler, even though the consequences were much the same. Back then she'd lose sleep over a fake name, over leading on someone she grew to care for, over being the mediator between science subject and corporate ambition, perennially juggling cold observation and passionate involvement, the objectivity she thought she had learned and the emotions she was led to believe she had forgotten.

Upon entering DYAD's parking lot, Delphine asks herself whether she would ever learn that sleep is not a currency, a coin to trade in; whatever value she placed upon things, ideals or people, it couldn't (well, _shouldn't_ ) compare to the maintenance of her health and sanity. Yet here she is, strolling through sanitized empty corridors with her access card of nigh-unlimited power, running on willpower alone after rows and rows of sleepless nights. Any door in the DYAD building will most likely open to her and still, with dry eyes and a yawn caught at the base of her throat for weeks, she makes her way to the older section of the institution. She likes that lab, the lab she and Cosima built together and which she hardly visits nowadays. They have faded somewhat by now, but it had been covered in the colours of joy, once.

After all these arguments – all they ever seem to do these days is argue, even if they're standing together in complete silence in the same room –, Cosima admits (to herself) that Delphine is right. She knew it all along, obviously, but ignored every reprimand and every hint out of spite. Two days ago she would have refused to come in on time to work on the cure for her illness even while coughing up blood only to plague Delphine. Why? Because she's a bitter little bastard about all of this, because Delphine never makes a big deal out of it, never fucking yells at her even once, always contained and logical and diplomatic, always the adult between the two of them and it gets on her fucking nerves that she herself is still self-immolating to the point of being with a woman she does not love only to see if she can spark some sort of reaction in Delphine. _Yes_ , she wants her to be jealous only so Cosima can spit in her face for it, _yes_ , she wants her to come back crawling and beg and tell her that breaking up was a mistake; _yes_ , she wants to wound her pride as her own had been wounded! Didn't she fucking get it? Cosima is hurt and she is angry and she is childish and stupid for letting it affect her so much, but this is who she is – or who she has become, anyway.

She's foolish and selfish and sometimes Delphine wonders (as she strokes an arm belonging to the leather couch in Cosima's laboratory) if she has always been like this without her noticing or if it's some new development, a product of their uneasy relationship or end thereof. She doesn't really consider them to be over, though, never has, even while saying the words to Cosima out loud. It just has to be different for a while, for the sake of them both, of them all. She understands the pain – does Cosima think she feels nothing? Has she learned nothing about Delphine after the entire time they spent together? – but not the stubbornness, not the sloppiness, the self-sabotage.

Delphine sits down, runs a hand through her hair, blinks her tired – ever alert – bloodshot eyes. She's right in this. Logically. Objectively.

And perhaps it's stupid to own up to her entitled mistakes by coming in for work in the middle of the night when there's really no one else left, but Cosima finds that maybe the very knowledge of the building being deserted, the idea of actual isolation even beyond the perimeter drawn by the lab's walls will help her focus; knowing Delphine isn't anywhere within it, isn't in her office _monitoring_ (Cosima scoffs at the thought) her every move from her computer upstairs might allow this hot-headed, anxious scientist some precious moments of concentration and peace.

She could almost let herself sleep here, alone, lying down on Cosima's couch like this, tranquil as she hasn't been in days, the smell of a spotless laboratory and the hum of artificial lights the best substitute for her concept of home as it is...

For, in a way, she is homeless as much as she is an orphan. She's found home in this strange arrangement of family, an entire idea fragmented and carried within the heart of each of her sisters... And since no one is watching, Cosima can confess to herself, one of those fragments of this moving, immaterial place she belongs to is in Delphine's hands as well. It might well be the largest portion of it as well. That she should be refused to return to that haven of theirs is perhaps what pains her the most, so, yes, she's angry. She's fucking heartbroken.

But Delphine is right.

And, strangely, she finds upon sweeping her card at the door and entering her lab, Delphine is here, strung upon her sofa.

What is she doing here?

“Cosima.” She had heard the door open and sat up immediately.

“Delphine.” A bite to the inner lip, a frown, followed by both hands shooting up in the air as someone who apologizes. “Don't get up for me, it's fine.”

What was supposed to sound harsh comes out mellow, she's too tired to play the game just now. It _is_ a quarter to four and sensible humans (unlike these two) are still sound asleep as they should be. The sentence immobilizes both of them as the chance encounter (is it? Do these two scientists believe in a coincidence such as this?) reveals their folly.

“You're... Early. Is there something wrong?”

The nerve! There she is, sitting upon _her_ couch, in _her_ lab at three forty-five _ante_ fucking _meridiem_ , caught snoozing as unprofessionally as can be (though still somehow in elegance, few wrinkles to her black and white attire, even if it's the same Delphine wore yesterday, Cosima notices) and still this woman who robbed her of nightly dreams for embodying the total sum of them in day to day life – her logic isn't brilliant at this hour, having slept poorly, yours wouldn't be either – is still acting the boss and seeking explanations for every instance of her non-compliance to the rules! At least Cosima still works here. If anyone can show up in ridiculous hours in this lab, it's her. Where is Delphine's office, home to the high and mighty? Is it too cold and minimalistic for her to bear for hours on end inside? Isn't it sophisticated enough for her to go lounge in anymore? And why the fuck is she another sleep castaway, just like herself?

So yes, yes, there's something wrong, I'm angry at everything, you don't love me anymore, there's a lock of your straightened hair falling to the opposite side of where it should, I left a woman alone in bed because I can't sleep because all I think of is you and I resent it I resent you, I thought I was stronger but all I want is to sleep by your fucking side and hold you to me until we're one and you fucking deny me the honour to do that, to love you, you deny me only to tease me in dreams, tease me here and now just by breathing and looking up at me with those damned wonderful eyes of yours the way you always do and _I don't know what to do_ –

“No. No, not at all. I just had, like, an insight and, uh, thought I should come in and see if it's worth anything before the idea just floats away from my brain.”

“Does it concern the Castor infection?” Oh, business mode, that's safe. She's buying time.

Cosima's not falling for it, she adopts bluntness again as she walks towards the sofa – with Delphine sitting like this, Cosima will tower over her for once.

“Yeah, sure, but what are _you_ doing here?”

“I... Don't really know, to be honest.” Well, the best out of them will be honest, of course, and after all those lies and half-truths, Cosima knows she means this. It makes _her_ the liar but it's late for _that_ now. “It's been some time, I know, but everything is still so new, I couldn't sleep. I think I needed some... Familiarity.”

She wants to snap back with one of her awfully offensive and unnecessary retorts that she keeps for these moments in which she's trying to convince someone else of the bullshit she's spewing when she herself doesn't believe a word of it, when her very heart all but pumps blood backwards in revolt at the collection of lies she stacks up in these moments.

But she doesn't lash out. Cosima simply plops down on the couch herself. They're close enough to see the vein at the base of their necks pulsate, but not enough to touch unless someone reaches out for the other.

“Yeah, I know how that goes.”

Awkward silence drapes itself over them. Delphine watches her and though her eyes are half-lidded, they capture every minuscule movement of Cosima's body as if she could see through skin. Cosima just averts her gaze continuously, going from nails to shoes to ceiling but never reciprocating Delphine's attention.

Heavens, she wants to kiss her.

Even if innocently, as a little girl would to her younger sister, if other options are unbearable or unforgivable. And Cosima looks at her as if she knows so. She wants to kiss her, erase their troubles, ask forgiveness for her immaturity, her calculated brashness, her adolescent disrespect, her infidelity; she wants forgiveness for taking on a load perhaps too heavy even for her powerful shoulders, a load which, albeit taken gladly, she might not be able to carry for much longer; forgiveness for ungratefulness, unworthiness, insincerity... The list goes on and on and on and she wants desperately to kiss her, she wants to kiss her deeply, hold her, love her, make love to her – the love is there, it never left, never wavered, never could, though she said it had, though she believed it had – untie the infinite knots they have both tied into the thick red rope that binds them together for life.

A twitch of the lip, a bite of the lip – fingers seeking refuge (from what, from her? From herself?) in the inside of a sweating palm, fingers spreading out shyly, quivering, to touch (nothing, no one) – a loud gulp, a dry mouth – pleading eyes, hooded eyes – a tongue parched, scorched, an apology carefully rolled up into it, a tongue soaked in yearning, dripping with affection, promises –

Cosima never makes the first move, she's too slow for that. The time it takes for her to loosen her wrists and look up at Delphine is the time Delphine takes to recoil from the silence and the avoidance, to herself look away at last and give up on an answer to her imploring eyes, to get up on her feet, back turned to Cosima.

“Well, I'll leave you to your insight,” she says without meaning it, straightening her suit without a glance backwards. “Please make an effort to report on it later.”

“ _Delphine_ ,” Cosima's voice cracks.

She looks back from over her shoulder, eyes soft again, soul bare.

 _I love you_.

Mouth agape, however, Cosima knows only to stare back until at last her eyes are blinded as if she has looked straight into the sun; she shifts her gaze once again, the coward, looks down wordless, her chest full with concrete air.

Delphine frowns lightly, opens her mouth and shuts it tight just as quickly. She sighs, tucks her hands into her pockets, gives Cosima time. But Cosima takes none of it, says nothing, looks away, and Delphine turns on her heel. She begrudgingly marches away into another sleepless night, another endless day, ashamed and unloved - though loving, ever loving - to perch herself up at her desk like an eagle, like a vulture, claws as sharp as ever, as great as the passion in her heart. It goes unrecognized, but she won't kill it, not even after this disappointment; her passion is the only thing breathing life into her at this point. It keeps her awake, but it keeps her alive.

When the lab door closes again, ripping Delphine and Cosima apart again, Cosima sinks into her couch. She wishes she could disappear into its folds, dissolve, as simply as that. She knows what she has (not) done.

Where Delphine had lain, a faint portion of her scent rests; not just her perfume, but her _scent_ , that personal, intimate signature aroma of hers, of her skin, her voice, her entire being. It strikes pain into Cosima's heart, but she can't help pressing her cheek against it, letting herself be seduced by the beautiful memories it possesses into sleep.

Despite the rift between them, Cosima drifts into slumber wrapped in Delphine. It will take hours before the day rises and Scott arrives for work, but until that happens, Cosima dreams in absolute bliss for the first time.


End file.
